North Korea fails to meet reactor shutdown deadline

SEOUL, South KoreaThe latest missed deadline in the tortuous years of negotiations aimed at getting North Korea to stop making nuclear weapons is not expected to derail the process, but it is a sign of the lingering mistrust between Washington and the communist nation.

North Korea failed to shut down and seal its sole operating nuclear reactor by Saturday as it pledged to do in February at six-nation talks.

The country insisted Friday it would honor the commitment after confirming that funds frozen under U.S. sanctions have been released - its main condition for disarmament since late 2005.

The frozen $25 million - held in dozens of accounts at a bank in the Chinese territory of Macau - was only freed this past week due to technical difficulties, just days before the deadline to shut down its reactor at Yongbyon and allow verification by U.N. inspectors. Washington failed to resolve the dispute over the frozen funds within 30 days as it had promised. Monetary authorities in Macau and executives with the bank, Banco Delta Asia, could not be reached for comment Saturday to see if North Korea had removed any of the $25 million in deposits that were frozen in September 2005.

The only immediate effect of the missed deadline is that North Korea will not receive 50,000 tons of heavy fuel oil it was promised - part of a total 1 million tons promised for dismantling its nuclear programs under the February agreement.

Saturday, the United States and other governments involved in six-nation talks on North Korea's nuclear programs said the slipping of the 60-day deadline was significant, but not yet fatal to a two-month-old disarmament agreement.

"We're concerned about the 60 days," Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, the chief U.S. negotiator, told reporters after meeting in Beijing with his Chinese counterpart. "A number of things were supposed to happen, and those things did not happen."

South Korea, a staunch supporter of rapprochement with the North, played down the failure to meet the 60-day deadline, calling it a technicality. Instead, South Korea's chief nuclear negotiator, Chun Yung-woo, said it was crucial for the North to meet its commitment.

"What is important is whether there is any wavering in political will," Chun said in a telephone interview.

For North Korea, which joined the ranks of nuclear-armed states in October with an underground explosion of an atomic bomb, it's not just about the money.

Pyongyang views the resolution of the financial dispute as an indication that Washington could be stepping back from its hard-line foreign policy that lumped the isolated communist regime in an "axis of evil" along with Iran and Saddam-era Iraq.

The U.S. agreed in February to enter talks with North Korea aimed at normalizing relations and putting aside the hostility that has lingered since they fought each other in the 1950-53 Korean War. The conflict ended in a cease-fire that has never been replaced by a peace treaty.

A Japanese newspaper aligned with the North Korean regime wrote recently that shutting down the reactor would mean Pyongyang "begins taking procedures to end war with the U.S. "It is out of question to give (nuclear facilities) up without a guarantee of peace," the Choson Sinbo said.

North Korean officials told a visiting U.S. delegation in the past week that it deserved another 30 days after the money was released to shut down the reactor. The delegation disagreed.

No matter when the shutdown happens, it is still just a small step in the disarmament process and no great sacrifice for North Korea, because it could be easily reversed.

A bigger hurdle will be persuading the North to dismantle all its atomic facilities involved in producing materials used to make bombs. No timeline has been set for that process, which could take years.

Completing disarmament would entail a final step that North Korean leaders seem hesitant to commit to: giving up as many as a dozen nuclear bombs that may already be in their arsenal.

To achieve that, U.S. officials will have to persuade the country that Washington is ready to deal with it as a respected fellow nation and that the "axis of evil" view is just a memory.

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